Twain & Stanley Enter Paradise

Seasoned readers James Langton, Henry Layva, and Robert Petkoff offer a pleasant melding of male voices in this vividly imagined and historical epic about two giants of the 19th century. Polly Lee does all the female voices; many of the women sound too much alike and are too high-pitched and irritating, but Lee is excellent in her main role as the famous bohemian painter Dorothy Tennant, the wife of famed explorer Sir Henry Morton Stanley. The book centers on Stanley’s extraordinary trajectory from a poverty-stricken Welsh orphan to a world-renowned explorer. It also features Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name Mark Twain, who was friends with Stanely during the late 19th century. Hijuelos uses their books, correspondence, and numerous newspaper accounts as a basis for this novel, his last before his death in 2013. The four readers create a satisfying ensemble for this surprising and well-told tale. A Grand Central hardcover. (Nov.)